


Love/Loss

by astxrwar



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Heavy Angst, I can't think of any tags lmao, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), POV Second Person, This is going to be long and kind of complicated, like really bad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 19:45:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5940928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astxrwar/pseuds/astxrwar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Kylo Ren meets a girl on the distant planet of Galidraan while hunting down a force-sensitive who is attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order. The obsession that ensues is not at all what he had planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (prologue)

**Author's Note:**

> Galidraan is actually a canon planet, guys. I put some real effort into being authentic. In other words: I am ridiculously anal and should be stopped. Sorry about the delay, I’ve been sick recently but! I’m feeling much better! As always, send me any ideas as to where you want the story to go or things you would like me to include. P.S.: I am always open to compliments or just comments in general so hmu because I am desperate for attention??   
> Follow me on tumblr at astxrwar.tumblr.com !

_Galidraan, Outer Rim, 33ABY_

Something is wrong.

The sun is setting over the tips of the snow-capped mountains in violent swirls of bitter burnt orange and purple, and the emerging moon is full and dusky-blue against the darkening sky. Everything is strangely, unnervingly _normal;_ night is falling like it always does.

You aren’t walking home.

The clusters of towering evergreens lining the edge of the forest rustle in the breeze, scattering a handful of loose pine needles across the fresh snow. It looks just like it did yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, but–

Something is _wrong._

This, you know, is a fact—just as you know you are stuck on this planet, and your parents are dead, and your dearest friend has left to join the Resistance. You _know_ something is different, and you can feel it calling. Not calling for you, no, but still— _calling._

You glance up at the stars, strangely dull against the rapidly darkening sky, and wrap your cloak—dark grey wool, fleece-lined and fur-trimmed—around your shoulders.

You step into the woods.

The dense tangle of trees seems to close around you, cutting off the faint light of the emerging moon and enveloping you in a blanket of heavy, permeating silence, and every single thought you had about _safety_ and _caution_ vanishes, dissipates, as the feeling of wrongness strengthens into something tangible, and you are swept up in the violent pounding push-pull of energy reverberating out in waves from deeper in the woods.

Your pulse picks up in response.

You start to run.

The fresh layer of loosely-packed snow crunches beneath your feet and the sparse tangle of dry branches catch in your clothes, scrape against your hands and your face and tangle in your hair, but you don’t stop. You can feel the warning buzz of pre storm tension building in the pit of your stomach but you force yourself to keep moving forward, you force yourself to ignore the cold seeping through your three layers of clothing, you force yourself to stem the surging swell of anxiety that rises in your chest as you get closer, move past another unremarkable copse of evergreens, pine needles coating the forest floor in a detritus of decaying foliage.

You stumble out into a small clearing.

And—

The ground is bathed in the faint eerie glow of the moon, and there are footprints, layered one on top of another in a tangled, unidentifiable mess, there is a charred, smoldering wound in a nearby tree—and there is blood, so much blood, spattered in a worryingly dense arc against the grizzled bark; some droplets have frozen over, and others have smeared, but it was recent. It had to be.

The sound of your harsh breathing suddenly seems abrasively loud in the stillness of the surrounding air.

You swallow, taste copper and iron and the bitter tang of fear, and wrap your cloak tighter around your body—it’s torn at the corner, you notice distantly, and there are a few stray twigs caught in the thick-woven fabric. You don’t bother pulling them free.

A strong wind gusts through the clearing, kicks up tiny flurries of snow and pine needles and makes the tangle of dead, dry branches overhead rattle ominously. You shiver. Ahead of you, the narrow, winding trail of footprints leading deeper into the forest seems to glow in the darkness, a beacon of either hope or stupidity—not that it matters anymore, you realize, you had always been far too curious for your own good.

Over the faint rustling of branches in the constant breeze, you hear a noise— a hum, steady and low, and what could be a sharp, static hiss of electricity, except there’s something uniquely grating about the sound of it, something about the way the echoing crackle reverberates in your ears and travels down your spine that feels bad, _wrong—_

But it doesn’t matter. You don’t think about it, you refuse to acknowledge the tremor of apprehension curling in your stomach or the fact that your palms are cold and clammy as you move forward. The shadows are dark enough to hide the outline of your body but you can see, as you get closer, two twin lights—one blue, the other sickly, wavering red— casting respective eerie shadows over two figures standing in the snow.

The sound—grating, static and sharp in the silence—is suddenly one that you recognize. The slender blue plasma blade in the man’s hand is unmistakable, even though you’d never even seen a lightsaber before, you still know.

You’ve heard the stories. Nearly everyone in town has. Legends about Jedi and lightsabers and Sith Lords and things that were too distant, too _ancient_ to be real, happening—they had _died,_ they had all been killed, they didn’t exist anymore.

The lightsabers collide with a sizzling crackle of energy, and the Jedi stumbles, falls to one knee beneath the crushing force of the blow and clutches at a wound on his side, stained dark _dark_ red with sluggishly seeping blood—

The other man turns—he’s wearing a mask, black with silver carvings that catch and reflect the eerie pearlescent light of the moon as he lifts his blade up, and you know _nothing_ about lightsabers or fighting in general but you are certain that the other man won’t be able to survive much longer.

“You should have known better than to stand against me,” the man says, voice distorted, robotic, through the mouthpiece of his mask. He doesn’t sound cruel, he doesn’t sound pleased, he doesn’t sound like he’s taking pleasure in any of it—he almost sounds sad. Somehow, that makes it worse.

“The Order will be rebuilt,” the Jedi manages to grit out. “You can’t stop all of us.”

The masked man says nothing.

He raises his lightsaber.

The Jedi exhales slowly and closes his eyes; resigned.

Your breath catches in your throat and you are _afraid,_ you are _terrified,_ your fingers are digging into the frozen bark and your eyes are glued to the scene and you are stuck there with a guilt-ridden conscience and a painfully inevitable knowledge of what is about to happen—

You take a step back. You don’t want to see.

A branch snaps beneath your boot.

You freeze.

The masked man looks up.

_No, no, no, no—_

You can’t see his eyes, but you know with crippling certainty that he’s looking at you, looking _through_ you, it feels like he’s frozen you in place with the sheer force of his gaze alone, and the sound of snow and winter branches crunching beneath his boot as he takes the first step towards you isn’t even enough to jolt you into moving, no, you’re stuck, trapped, acutely aware of the jagged surface of the tree trunk pressed against your back as the distance between you gets smaller and smaller and smaller—

You see a tiny telltale flash of blue.

The Jedi’s lightsaber hums as it cleaves a sharp, clean, _deliberate_ line through the cold night air towards the Sith’s open neck–

He’s not fast enough.

The masked man deflects the blow effortlessly.

You can’t see what happens next, but you don’t need to.

The Sith’s warped blade hums, _sings,_ as it slices through the air, you hear the unmistakable sound of the saber colliding with something and you hear a choked-off shuddering gasp and you see—

You see the Jedi’s hand uncurl from around the handle.

You see the blue lightsaber fall to the ground.

The masked man turns back to face you, his movements slow, deliberate, and he stares at you for a long, long moment, head tilted to the side, as if he’s contemplating what to do.

He seems resigned when he lifts his blade.

It takes a moment for you to realize what’s about to happen, and then—

You feel a bit like your legs have stopped working, your insides contract and constrict around nothing and you feel an overwhelming wave of _fear_ that paralyzes your muscles and leaves you frozen with the terrifying, inevitable realization of your own human fragility.

Barely two feet away, the fallen Jedi’s lightsaber flickers in the snow.

The masked man’s blade starts its downward arc in the same second that your hand reaches out, closes around the freezing metal hilt of the saber lying forgotten on the ground. You swing it up, the lightsabers collide with a static hiss and crackle and hum and the painful crushing _force_ of the blow reverberates up your arm so powerfully that the lightsaber is nearly knocked out of your hand.

The man doesn’t immediately strike again—out of shock or anger, you can’t tell.

You exhale, you breath forming a cloud of steam in the freezing night air.

The raw, uneven edges of his lightsaber flicker dangerously.

His empty hand curls into a fist.

And then—

He swings down again, with the same impossible power, and your muscles react before you’re even aware of it, raising the blade to absorb the brunt of the impact, and then his saber is sliding off of yours with a hiss and a crackle and you’re blocking again and it becomes a flickering, dizzying chorus of adrenaline-fueled _act_ and _react,_ you’re swinging the blade in a deadly arc with a savagery you didn’t realize you were capable of until it occurred to you that you’re _literally_ fighting for your life.

The masked man swings his lightsaber down like it’s a broadsword, puts all the force of his bodyweight behind the blow—

And it’s over.

You stumble backwards, lightsaber knocked out of your hand, and fall down against the snow.

He stares down at you, silent, for a long moment.

Your numb, shaky fingers dig helplessly into the frozen ground.

When he raises his lightsaber, you close your eyes.

But—

It doesn’t—

Nothing happens.

There is a sharp, metallic hiss. You open your eyes. He’s retracted his blade.

You stare at each other for a moment.

He steps forward.

There is a split second of pain as the hilt of his lightsaber collides with the side of your head, and then—

Nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did my best to characterize Hux despite the fact that he got 0.004 seconds of screentime. Yes, there is a bit of a power struggle between him and Kylo at the end of this chapter, if that’s not clear. As always hmu with constructive criticism and more importantly tell me what y’all thought about the audio log and the dream sequence that the reader had, since I’m kind of iffy about those parts. Thanks for reading!

_Personal Audio Recorder (P.A.R.)_

_Ren, Kylo_

_Log #328_

_33ABY|14:37 GST_

_————————————-_

_[Sounds of pacing in the background]_

_I don’t know why I didn’t kill her. The girl. She isn’t important. I—_

_All of my training, and I couldn’t do something so simple. I can’t let this happen again. The call of the light—It overpowered me for a second. No, less than that. But—_

_The Supreme Leader will be disappointed._

_Although—_

_She is powerful, and strong with the force. I could feel it. She fought well with a lightsaber—one that wasn’t her own. With some measure of training and discipline, she could be an asset to the cause._

_We reach the base in less than a day._

_I’ll have to convince her by then._

_[Log ends.]_

_————————————-_

_Hyperspace, Outer Rim, 33ABY_

You wake up—somewhere.

You don’t move for a few minutes, and listen to the faint robotic hum coming from beneath you—an engine, or a motor, maybe—and the slow, rhythmic sound of your heartbeat. Your head pounds. You feel disoriented and dizzy and _unbalanced_ —you don’t know where you are or how you got there or how much time has passed, and your memory of the last few minutes _—_ hours, maybe even _days—_ is disturbingly blank.

You open your eyes slowly.

The room you’re in is dark. The walls are metal, simple and well built, glinting silver in the light from the dimmed overhead lamp. There’s a bookshelf in the corner, made of heavy, polished pine wood, bare except for a series of hardcovers, lined neatly on the bottom shelf. The laundry basket propped against the far wall is empty, and the nightstand next to the bed—sturdy, minimalist, covered in a layer of dark paint— is spotless, with a single bedside lamp resting on top. There is a small steel-framed mirror hanging above the dresser, and a glowing, wall-mounted clock beside it.

There is nothing else in the room.

No windows, no doors that you can see. There are no photographs, no mementos, nothing remotely resembling a personal item—it’s not quite bare enough to be abandoned, furnished just enough to look lived-in but still somehow _impersonal._

You swallow uneasily.

You sit up, and step gingerly onto the cold stone floor.

Above you, the light—which up until now had been dim—brightens suddenly.

A section of the wall lifts up with a hiss of steam and the grating sound of metal scraping against metal. There is something—some _one–_ on the other side. A man in a mask.

Suddenly—violently—you remember.

You remember.

You _remember_ , and your stomach churns.

The man doesn’t say anything.

“Where am I?” you manage to ask, icy-cold fear settling like a lead weight in the pit of your stomach.

The door closes behind him, and the man takes a step forwards. You’re stumbling back, away from him, before you even realize what you’re doing.

He cocks his head to the side.

“You’re afraid of me,” he says, his voice distorted.

You exhale shakily.

“You tried to kill me,” you say, quieter than you intended.

“I’m sorry,” he replies. Any sincerity in his voice is lost through the filter of his mask.

You don’t speak, not for a moment; you give yourself a moment to shut your eyes and slow down your heartrate and gather your thoughts, and you remind yourself that you absolutely can’t afford to break down, not when you’re trapped and lost and overwhelmingly, painfully defenseless.

“The other man. The—the Jedi, is he…?” You manage to say, “Did you…?”

“He wasn’t a Jedi,” the man says, the sound of his voice suddenly cutting through the air with all the bite of a too-sharp knife. You flinch. “He was a—a _fake,_ an _amateur_. Being a Jedi—using the force—it’s _so much more than that._ ”

The following silence is tense and strained.

“Is he dead?”

He hesitates.

“Yes,” he replies monotonously.

Your mouth floods with the sour taste of bile, and you have the sudden, insistent urge to retch.

“You killed him.” It isn’t a question.

“Yes.”

You study him with a sort of clinical detachment as he walks towards you, distantly aware of your emotions—anger and guilt and pure, cold fear—churning wildly in the pit of your stomach.

“Who are you?” you ask finally. “What do you want?”

He pauses.

He lifts his hands up, and he reaches beneath the heavy, coarse fabric of his robe bunching around his shoulders, and he unclasps his mask, and—

_Oh._

He places it down on the nightstand, and the sound of it colliding with the polished wooden surface echoes around the room, painfully loud in the tense silence.

And the man—

His posture is stiff. His face is blank. The harsh light of the room throws the angles of his face into stark contrast, heavy shadows collecting around his jaw and along the side of his nose– he looks out of place, like he doesn’t quite belong here but doesn’t have anywhere else to go. He’s older than you by a few years, maybe more; his hair is dark, his skin is pale, his lips are full and parted as he exhales; a slow shaky sigh like he’d been waiting for something, holding his breath. His eyes are eerily inexpressive. And he’s _handsome,_ you realize faintly. He’s _human._ He doesn’t look like a monster, and somehow that just makes it worse.

“My name is Kylo Ren,” he says, his voice smooth and low and deceptively _soft_ without the filter of his mask. You try to keep yourself as still as you can as he watches you, measuring strengths and weaknesses, probably formulating a thousand ways to neutralize you should you become a threat.

“What do you want?” you repeat, slightly more forceful.

He—Kylo—moves closer. Too close. He’s devastatingly tall and broad-shouldered and just— _intimidating,_ and his eyes focus on yours with an intensity that has you itching to take a very large step backwards.

You don’t.

His head tilts to the side. Your eyes flicker down.

“I want you to join me,” he says.

It takes a second—just a second—for you to realize what he said, for you understand what he was asking, and when it finally sinks in, you find yourself biting back a decidedly inappropriate bout of hysterical laughter. He had tried to kill you. He had murdered the other man in cold blood and probably left his body alone to freeze in the forest, probably hadn’t even had the decency to bury him—

Your throat feels tight. You want to cry.

 _No,_ you think to yourself. _I don’t want to. Leave me alone. I want to go home._

“Why me?” you say instead.

Kylo doesn’t immediately answer. He raises his hand as if to brush your hair back from your forehead, but he doesn’t touch you. Of course he doesn’t touch you.

“You are strong with the Force,” he murmurs quietly, tilting his head to the side. “Can’t you feel it?”

You hesitate. Your tongue feels dry and heavy in your mouth, like sandpaper. It’s hard to speak. “I don’t—what are you talking about?”

“Let me show you,” he says, voice uncharacteristically gentle.

His fingers brush your temple before you can reply.

His brow furrows.

A dull pain emanates from inside your skull.

And then—

He’s inside your head. He’s carding through fuzzy, distant images that you’re certain aren’t yours and there’s an insistent, buzzing pressure right behind your eyes, brief glimpses of long-forgotten memories flashing across your subconscious—a childhood spent in initiate training, meditating, a series of battles depicted in flashes of blue and green and red, two twin moons revolving over a planet you’ve never seen before _,_ a series of people wielding red lightsabers, generations and generations of Jedi and Sith Lords entangled in a messy, chaotic battle for supremacy and an overwhelming sense of _power._

It feels–

_Familiar._

You jerk backwards.

You blink. You try to clear your head. You fail.

“What was—“ you begin to say.

Confusion flickers across Kylo’s face. “That was your heritage. Your _birthright._ ”

You don’t say anything, torn between resentment and anger and a lingering, persistent feeling of fear.

“I can show you,” he continues. “I can _teach_ you.”

It’s not an offer. You at least know that much. You don’t have the option to say no—you never had it, not even at the beginning, before he walked into the room, not even when you were still on your home planet following a stupid hunch into the middle of the forest.

It’s almost like fate, if you even believed in that sort of thing.

But—

You’re stuck. Trapped. Lost.

Suddenly, the room seems more unfamiliar than it did before, and the overwhelming feeling of wrongness seems almost too much to bear.

You curl your hands into fists at your sides, digging your fingernails into the soft part of your palms. It hurts.

You weigh your options.

If you can fake it—fake being dark, fake being his apprentice, fake being on his side—just long enough to gain his trust, maybe—

_Maybe._

You swallow past your fear and your disgust and your revulsion—

“Okay.”

*~*~*~*~*~*

You’re dreaming.

There is a boy—you don’t recognize him—a teenager with long, unkempt hair and deep bags under his eyes, resonating with a sense of power and anger and hate, there is fire and blood and someone screaming— _I loved you, Anakin—_ and a man in a black mask, a Sith Lord— _Darth Vader—_ a boy holding him as he dies— _Luke Skywalker—_ a group of children training, laughing, playing, the familiar sound of Kylo’s lightsaber and a desperate cry— _Ben, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, this is my fault, I should’ve helped you, I should’ve protected you, please, you don’t have to do this—_

_I’m so sorry, Leia. I couldn’t save him._

You wake up in the middle of the night. Your cheeks are wet, you notice dimly. You’re crying.

You don’t know why.                                        

*~*~*~*~*~*

At seven, the door to your room is abruptly opened.

You look around somewhat frantically before realizing that yes, you’re still alone, and yes, the sheets on your bed are deep, angry red and not the thick grey wool that you’re accustomed to, the walls are metal and the room is cold and everything is still painfully unfamiliar.

You aren’t home.

You exhale forcefully, the sound harsh, abrupt, choked, and then you swing your legs over the side of the bed and you force yourself to compartmentalize.

There is someone standing in the doorway. You recognize the crisp white and black of a Stormtrooper uniform, the threatening shadow of a red-tipped blaster gun strapped to their thigh.

“We’re landing in less than an hour,” the Stormtrooper—a man—says, in a crisp, clear monotone. “Kylo has asked me to escort you to the main deck.”

“I—“ your voice shakes, and you take a moment to swallow and focus and regulate yourself before continuing. “All right. Should I—change, or something?” You gesture down at your clothes, worn and patched in several places.

The Stormtrooper hesitates for a moment, and then presses a button on the wall outside. Another door opens next to the bookcase with a hiss and a small burst of white steam.

“There’s a shower through there,” he says gruffly, “And clothes in the dresser.”

“Thank you,” you murmur quietly, heading towards the bathroom.

“And—“ he adds, as you pick up a charcoal-grey towel from the small closet, his voice significantly lower, “Hurry up, yeah? I don’t want to make him angry.”

Before you can respond, he closes the door.

The bathroom is plain. There is a silver-framed mirror hanging over the white marble counter, and you take a minute to study your reflection, before stripping out of your clothes and stepping into the shower. You make sure the water is almost painfully hot.

By the time you had finished and gotten dressed in the black underclothes and loose-fitting robe that had been left for you, it’s half past seven and the hallways are empty. The Stormtrooper from earlier, however, is waiting patiently for you to emerge from your quarters.

“There you are,” he says, visibly relaxing. “Come on, we’ve just landed. I don’t want to be late.”

He starts walking down the hall. You realize, dimly, that you have no choice but to follow him.

“You’ll need an identification pass, obviously, but we’ll get that all handled, it won’t take too long,” he says cheerfully, his gait long and steady, unaware of your silence.

You aren’t focusing. You should be. But suddenly you’re being propelled down an unfamiliar hallway and there are a team of Stormtroopers marching past you, perfectly rhythmic, almost mechanical, and the sound of their boots against the floor sends a telltale throb of anxiety through your chest—because it’s _familiar,_ that sound, you’ve heard it before, it’s a sound that means danger and death and destruction and reminds you of when you were younger, when you’d spend hours hiding in closets and waiting for the sound of footsteps to pass. This isn’t where you belong.  The First Order is cruel and malicious and you’re _nothing like them._ It’s not fair. You shouldn’t be here.

The Stormtrooper escorting you turns another corner—he’s still talking, excessively, about nothing important, as if he’s used to chattering aimlessly while others are forced to listen—and as he guides you down a longer hallway, you feel your throat constrict tightly.

There is a window.

Outside, you can see snow-capped trees and mountains, painfully similar to the ones you had left behind and the glimmering lights of star systems in the sky. You wonder if any of them are yours. You wonder if you’re looking back at your planet, your _home,_ from millions of miles away, and your stomach clenches painfully in response.

Up ahead, two Stormtroopers stand guard over what you assume is the door to the main deck.

When you approach it, the man murmurs something to them, and they step aside.

The door opens.

Kylo Ren is there. He’s standing silently, posture stiff and hands clasped behind his back. His mask is on. You nearly jerk backwards when you catch sight of him.

“You’re awake,” he comments coolly, dismissing the Stormtrooper with a sharp nod.

You don’t reply.

He doesn’t say another word as the ship descends into the hangar, and the exit ramp opens. You’re thankful for that. You can’t focus. You can’t stand to focus. The veritable sea of white and black that Kylo leads you through feels suffocating, and you fight down the rising, persistent pulse of anxiety in your ribcage. This isn’t right. This isn’t where you belong.

Kylo stops next to someone. A man. He’s tall and he’s slender and he’s pale, with thick red hair parted neatly to one side. He has a strong jaw, a square chin, and thin lips. He’s handsome. He offers you a quick, disinterested glance and an obviously forced smile that doesn’t fit his face, and looks strange among his stern, cold features.

“Hux,” Kylo says, his voice sharp, cutting through the air with barely-restrained irritation. “You’ve heard already that I’ve taken on an apprentice.”

The man—Hux—hesitates, and turns to look at Kylo with an unreadable expression. “Yes,” he responds coldly.

“Then I’m sure you realize what that entails,” he says—and maybe you’re imagining the buzzing undercurrent of aggression to his words, but maybe you’re not, because Hux’s expression suddenly becomes guarded and his eyes—a peculiar grey-green color—glint with the faintest ghost of resentment.

The next few moments of silence are bizarrely charged.

“Of course,” Hux says abruptly, turning back to face you and offering his hand. “General Hux. I should have properly introduced myself.”

You take it, and allow him to place a perfunctory kiss across your knuckles. His skin is almost unnaturally warm, you notice distantly.

“[Name],” you reply. “It’s nice to meet you.”

A small smile curls across Hux’s face; and this one is different than the polite, tight lipped grimace he had offered you earlier—it’s sharp and it’s curious and it’s cunning, exposing a row of slightly uneven bright white teeth, and suddenly you want to take a large step backwards.

“Likewise,” he says. “Shall I show you around, then? I have nothing planned until three. If that’s acceptable to you, of course, Ren.”

You wonder if you’re imagining the challenging undercurrent to his voice.

Kylo doesn’t respond.

You hesitate, and glance up for a fraction of a second at Kylo—who is excruciatingly hard to read behind his mask—and then at Hux, the welcoming smile still plastered across his face.

“That’s—fine,” Kylo grits out.

Hux smiles disarmingly.

You fight the urge to shudder.


End file.
